Show FREE TRADE COLONIES The Alia California of Saturday last has a very good article on The Test of Free Trade The occasion for the article ar-ticle was the report of Consul Griffin of Sydney The test has been made in two colonies Victoria and New South Wales Here were two colonies new and sparsely settled seeking emigrants and commerce not glutted with wealth nor become haughty with wealth and prosperity Protection it has been claimed is the guaranty of peace and prosperity pros-perity in new countries while free trade if of benefit to any country could only be so to an old and well established country where all things have been reduced I re-duced to the cheapest and simplest methods of manufacture Protection is the friend of the poor man free trade of the rich man What have these two systems sys-tems done for these two colonies Victoria Vic-toria has protection and her tariff imposes an ad valorem duty of from ten to twenty five per cent on some ninetythree different dif-ferent articles and there is a specific duty on some two hundred and thirty seven articles It is said that some of these specific duties are so high as to be prohibitory The Victorian tariff is extremely complicated while that of New South Wales is very simple During the decade just past the population popula-tion of the free trade colony of New South Wales has increased fortynine percent per-cent while the population of the protectionist J pro-tectionist colony of Victoria has only increased in-creased eighteen per cent During the same decade the imports and exports of New South Wales have increased over one hundred per cent while there was an increase of less than ten per cent in both the imports and exports of Victoria Many things of home growth and consumed con-sumed at home are cheaper in Victoria than in New South Wales but this is doubtless owing to the fact that labor is i cheaper in Victoria than in New South Wales This fact would seem to completely com-pletely reverse the theory of the protectionists protec-tionists that labor is best paid where there is a high protective tariff In these two colonies both young both undeveloped unde-veloped the one which has adopted free trade pays the higher compensation to the workingman The resources and industries in-dustries of the two colonies are very much the same In 1883 the value of the exports from New South Wales to Great Britain was 8287403 pounds sterling ster-ling while the value of the imports from Great Britain was 8026179 pounds sterling ster-ling The value of the exports from Victoria Vic-toria to Great Britain for the same year was 7103038 pounds sterling while the value of the exports fromGreatBritain into Victoria for the same year was 0497747 pounds sterling The staple exports from both countries is wool and in 1SS3 the amount of wool exported from New South Wales exceeded the export from Victoria 1890796 Ibs This is an important showing show-ing and from two colonies each choosing the line of policy in regard to trade each deemed best and free trade has outstripped out-stripped protection As the Alta says Here are nuts for protectionists to crack and we advise them to lose no time in trying their jaws upon them |